The Court-Martial of Daniel Boone

Based on a true, but little-known, episode in Daniel Boone's life, Allan Eckert's first full-length novel re-creates the legendary frontiersman's severest test - the trial for his life at Boonesborough in 1778. A captain during the Revolutionary War, Boone faces court-martial and hanging for such high crimes as betraying his command to the Indians, conspiring to surrender Boonesborough, consorting with the enemy, and accepting favors from the British. And Boone pleads guilty to all of the actions detailed in the charges against him.

But he also pleads not guilty to the charge of treason, and to the amazement of the court, he insists on defending himself-disregarding the advice of experienced legal counsel in favor of a plan only he himself knows.

Strong, seemingly irrefutable evidence is added to the prosecution's case with each witness. To a man, they corroborate the capture of Boone and his company by Shawnee Indians, Boone's preferential treatment in the Indian camp, his negotiations with the Shawnee chief and the British Commandant in Detroit to surrender Boonesborough, his suspicious conduct during the recent heavy siege of the village, and his adoption by the Shawnees.

Finally, confronted by almost certain conviction and an embittered hostile gallery of settlers who once trusted him, Boone mounts his defense.

Allan W. Eckert supports this rousing, highly suspenseful story of the famous frontier hero with a historian's attention to the facts of the trial and a novelist's sure feeling for the danger and adventure of the eighteenth-century American wilderness. Whether capturing the rough speech of a frightened settler or weighing the patience and hunter's cunning of Daniel Boone, the author commands the same narrative power that distinguishes the six books in his Winning of America series.

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